Preformed fiberglass swimming pools offer many advantages over in-situ formed shotcrete or concrete walled swimming pools. Fiberglass pool bodies may be quickly and inexpensively formed and require considerably less effort to put into the ground. One drawback associated with fiberglass swimming pools, and swimming pools in general, has been the need for professional winterization of the pools, including blowing out water lines leading into and from the pool and then plugging those now-evacuated lines from the pool side. If this step is improperly performed, repetitive freezing and thawing cycles can cause serious damage to the pool and the associated buried waterlines, requiring expensive and disruptive excavation to repair. Typically, winterization is performed by professionals, and costs several hundred dollars each year to close the pool in the fall and reopen it in the spring.
Thus, there remains a need for a plumbing system and method that would allow easy winterization by the homeowner in the fall and equally easy return to operational status in the spring. The present novel technology addresses this need.